Handheld 3-dimensional wound measuring system

Abstract

Background

Measuring wound dimensions is important for monitoring and predicting the healing process. In our paper we propose and validate a handheld measuring system with dedicated software for measuring wound dimensions.

Methods

The measuring system comprises a commercial DSLR camera and a light pattern projection system. It is based on triangulation and structured illumination principles which enable handheld measuring. An edge of the wound is detected from the colour information of the measurement. Across the area of the wound, virtual healthy skin is approximated which enables the calculation of the wound volume and area, in addition to the wound circumference, which is calculated from the detected edge.

Results

In vitro verification using virtual standards showed that the accuracy of the analysis software is over 95% and 93% for measuring the area and volume respectively. A significant part of the error can be attributed to the inability of approximation to replicate entirely missing features. The accuracy of measuring the volume reduced to about 89% when a 3D measuring step was included in the analysis. When measuring in vivo wounds, the unrepeatability of the system was under 8% for measuring the area, which is a bit lower than comparable systems, and 5% for measuring the volume, which is about 4 times lower.

Conclusion

Based on these results and the ease of use, we conclude that the system is suitable to be used in daily clinical practice for measuring wound dimensions.

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